Sideways

[SoNowThen]

Saw this today. I won't risk blotting its perfection with a 'review', so I'll just say it was a masterpiece. And Virginia Madsen has a really beautiful face. Which is strange to say, since it seems like Payne tries really hard to make everything in his movies look really workman and normal and nonglamorous, and yet every single shot she had she just looked angelic. Oh, and last thing, it had some of the best dissolves I've seen in awhile. I'm thinking particularly of that scene when Miles phones Maya to tell her the truth about his novel, and Payne bled REALLY slowly from the wide to the CU, and then held them both at once. Great stuff.

[MacGuffin]

Quirky 'Sideways' Sends Pinot Noir Sales Soaring

The pinot noir repartee between Paul Giamatti 's and Virginia Madsen's characters in the movie "Sideways" has helped spur dizzying sales of the red wine during a lingering U.S. glut, wine experts say.

U.S. consumers are salivating over the scene in which Giamatti's "Miles," a neurotic, failing author, evangelizes pinot's subtle delicacy to Madsen's "Maya" in an attempt to wow her with his wine knowledge.

"People come in and immediately say, 'Where's the pinot noir?"' said Steve Villani, manager of Columbus Circle Liquors in Manhattan. "After a while, we began to ask them if they saw the movie, and they laugh out loud and say, 'yes."'

As the Oscar-nominated film generated a buzz through the holidays, U.S. consumers bought 22 percent more pinot noir in the four weeks ending Jan. 15 than the year before, ACNielsen data show. The big winner is Constellation Brands Inc.'s Blackstone Pinot Noir from California, with year-over-year sales jumping 147 percent in the 12 weeks after the film hit theaters on Oct. 22.

"People have really latched onto the romance of the scene, which made pinot the star, no doubt about it," said Phil Lynch, spokesman for Louisville, Kentucky wine producer Brown-Forman Inc. .

HIGH-MAINTENANCE GRAPE

The pinot noir grape, a Burgundy variety, requires a notoriously huge amount of attention from the grower, which makes getting the wine's taste just right extremely difficult -- something Giamatti waxes about during the scene.

"People in the know graduate up to pinot noir as the ultimate red wine, but the buzz around this movie has helped infrequent wine consumers try it immediately," said Jon Fredrikson, president of Gomberg, Fredrikson & Associates, a Woodside, California, wine consulting firm.

Sales of pinot were up 50 percent after the movie's release for Napa Valley's Diageo Chateau & Estate Wines, a unit of Diageo PLC, but up just 10 percent for Brown-Forman.

The companies wouldn't say if the pinot sales increases cut into other varieties or affected bottom lines, but they welcome any help from Hollywood that pulls grapes from the vine and puts them into bottles.

U.S. wine producers have been hurt by a grape surplus, competition from Australian imports and such inexpensive wines as the Charles Shaw label, popularly known as "Two-Buck Chuck."

"Anything that moves cases these days is great," said Brown-Forman's Lynch. "This movie could help pinot noir replace merlot as the new hot red wine."

Constellation planned to sell 25,000 cases of Blackstone Pinot in 2004, but instead sold 46,000, said Lisa Farrell, spokeswoman.

[Ravi]

Artwork

Why couldn't they have used the artork below without the credits?  The banner and the awards blurbs are ugly.

[matt35mm]

We've all seen worse DVD covers.  The marketing people, and I'm inclined to agree, don't think that people would pick up a green box with a drawing and the title "Sideways" on it.

In singing, you sing to the back of the audience.  In selling, you market to the people who didn't intend to buy your product.  Both of which are just a way of saying that you have to be louder, and make sure that everyone can hear you clearly.

SOME covers are butt ugly, but that Sideways one is acceptable, I think.  They just added faces and awards info.  They probably could've done without the faces.  Plus it will almost definitely change, as its release is way after the Oscars.

[modage]

the faces stripe is hideous. but it could be worse, they could be bigger.  this i can deal with.

[NEON MERCURY]

i know this might sound sort of white trashy but dont the rest of you people think that the picture of those two people in the bottle look like a balding kevin smith and a slightly over weight jason mewes?

[El Duderino]

and i thought the garden state airbrushing was bad. jesus.

[The Perineum Falcon]

I've noticed recently that some movies (such as Troy and Spiderman 2) have different covers for their Widescreen and Fullscreen editions. I think it'd be nice if they kept the artwork as Ravi suggested for the WS, and the face-stripe for the FS.

[cowboykurtis]

the theatrical poster is shit to begin with

[El Duderino]

the theatrical poster is shit to begin with

i disagree...i like it a lot.

[cine]

i have a couple of them is anyone wants to buy them off me.

[Born Under Punches]

Talk about being a Johnny Come Lately to the party.  After months of not fitting in enough time, I finally ended up seeing this on the past weeked in Savannah.  Talk about an interesting audience.  I went along with three other friends who are still in school and we must have been the youngest people to see the movie.  But I have to say I absolutely loved the movie.  I'm not going to repeat what's already been said, but one thing about this movie is that the character Miles hit a little too close to home for me.  I haven't had the commonality of morosity of a character's situation in life since I first saw Punch-Drunk Love.  First Antoine Doinel, then Barry Egan, now Miles.  Here's hoping another great movie comes along and gets me thinking about my anxiety.

[pete]

talk about using "talk about" twice in one paragraph.

[Sleepless]

**Finally** got round to seeing this today. I really wasn;t sure what to expect (I hated About Shimdt), but I gotta say it: this movie was great. I think the ending would have been much cooler if they'd just ended with the last scene of him in the fast food restaurant drinking the bottle of '61. I didn't dislike the actual ending, but for me, that scene was the ending that did it.

[matt35mm]

I think the ending would have been much cooler if they'd just ended with the last scene of him in the fast food restaurant drinking the bottle of '61.

WHAT?  NO!  That would've made it a completely different movie.  I just can't imagine it ending there.  Plus, this movie has a fantastic ending.  The WHOLE POINT of the ending is that hint of optimism.  He hits rock bottom, and when you've got nothing to lose, that's when you have everything to gain.

As it is, you end up thinking, "Yep, maybe things will turn out all right for Miles."  With the rock bottom ending, you'd think that maybe after the cut to black he would just go and shoot himself in the head.

People walk out of this movie with a warm smile on their face, and it's because of that last shot.  I can't imagine how pissed off everyone, including I, would be if it ended on that low point.  I mean, it was a very successful portrail of rock bottom.  I could feel that whole lump-in-your-throat-what's-the-point-why-even-try thing very strongly, but I... I just disagree with you, I guess, about that as an ending.  Instead of the feel-good movie of the year, it would've been the feel-suicidal movie of the year, and... I just have the feeling that that's not what the filmmakers were going for.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to rip into your idea, but I just disagree.  I love the ending as is.